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Freeman Dyson on climate change, interstellar travel, fusion, and virtue-signalling
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The life of physicist Freeman Dyson spans advising bomber command in World War II; working at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, as a contemporary of Einstein; and providing advice to the US government on a wide range of scientific and technical issues. He is a rare public intellectual who writes prolifically…
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Special Report: Inside the Government Digital Service – the Happiest Place on Earth
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Last year, the UK’s Cabinet Office asked an external management consultancy to examine staff morale and high turnover at the Government Digital Service. After interviewing more than 100 civil servants, its scathing confidential analysis described an organisation beset by low morale and run by a “cabal” management of old friends, who bypassed talent in favour…
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On Nudge
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No 10’s controversial “nudge unit” has been spun out into a company – but it hasn’t fallen far from the nest. The 16-strong Behavioural Insights Team (as it’s known) will become a private entity and will be able to tap into cash originally set aside for fledgling inventors. It will then sell its services back to the…
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Habeas Data, or Why any Silicon Valley ‘bill of rights’ will guarantee you never have any
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Widespread ridicule has greeted the announcement that eight giant technology companies led by Google and including Facebook and LinkedIn were going to save us from the NSA. The ridicule is thoroughly justified, for trusting giant corporations – whose business models rely on selling your identity to advertisers – to safeguard your privacy is like hiring a kleptomaniac…
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“The price of nothing”
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Kim Dotcom has a new service, with features that Forbes calls “See No Evil, Store No Evil”. But perhaps that should be “see no value, store no value”. I have not come to mock the rotund self-promoter, but rather to talk about what might happen if its users were to throw themselves at the service…
